


One Hour a Week

by LostWendy1



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 00:17:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14532528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostWendy1/pseuds/LostWendy1
Summary: For one hour every week, Azriel was allowed to see his mother. It was never the same day, and never the same hour, and he was never given advance notice. Usually, one of the servants would make the trek down to his cell, footsteps light on the cold stone; he almost never heard them coming until the keys jangled in the thick metal lock.***Azriel visits his mother.





	One Hour a Week

**Author's Note:**

> There are no ACOFAS spoilers in this fic, but the explanation of how this fic came to be (in the End Notes) sort of does have ACOFAS spoilers. Nothing that actually spoils the plot, but it does reference a line of dialogue in case you want to remain 100% unspoiled. 
> 
> Standard disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or books in the ACOTAR series, nor am I making any money off of this. Everything belongs to Sarah J Maas and Bloomsbury. 
> 
> **It's mentioned in ACOMAF that Rhy's mother knew Azriel's mother for a short time, so that's why I made Azriel's mother a seamstress before everything else happened.

For one hour every week, Azriel was allowed to see his mother. It was never the same day, and never the same hour, and he was never given advance notice. Usually, one of the servants would make the trek down to his cell, footsteps light on the cold stone; he almost never heard them coming until the keys jangled in the thick metal lock.

“They’re waiting.” That’s all the servant would say. _They’re waiting,_  as if _he_ were inconveniencing _them_ by not being ready.

It was never the same servant—the house seemed to have a neverending supply of them—but always a servant nevertheless. His father hardly spent any time at the manor, always off supervising and delegating and doing whatever else he deemed important enough to keep him away from home. Certainly his brothers would never condescend to fetch him, and the idea of _her_ coming to get him was so absurd, it almost made him want to laugh. Almost.

And then he’d follow whatever poor servant had been made to collect him and stagger up the stairwell and out into the courtyard, blinking in the harsh brightness of the sun. He supposed, by living so far north near the mountains, that it shouldn’t be that bright out, and perhaps it wasn’t, but living in a dungeon cell such as it was didn’t give him much basis for comparison.

(That wasn’t completely fair, he sometimes thought on his better days. He was allowed out into the house an hour every day, though that too came with restrictions. He was limited to only certain rooms within that large building, and never the second floor living quarters. He almost always chose to spend his hour in the library or the kitchen. Usually the kitchen won out. It was warm there, after all.)

And then he’d be taken to his mother. She still lived in the camp, on the far side now, well away from the rest of the females. That was where his father had first seen her. She had been a seamstress once, sewing and mending the clothes and leathers of the warriors, occasionally called to make clothes anew.

She wasn’t a seamstress now.

The servant would then pass him off to whichever two warriors had offended his father enough to draw escort duty that day. Though this was far from irregular for Azriel, he often wondered which was more embarrassing for the two chosen soldiers: having to babysit their lord’s bastard for an hour or having to walk him past the entire camp to do so?

It was a routine walk, and by the age of ten Azriel had now learned to train his eyes away from the the sparring rings and fighters that danced within, away from the sky and the scouts that flew amongst the clouds. It was still hard, though, and sometimes the pressure to look was so great, he thought he’d burst from the wanting of it. When the scouts came back from patrol, their wings up above were spread so wide in flight that their shadows often covered both himself and his guards. Sometimes it seemed like Azriel’s own shadow would move to join with theirs, but when he looked again, his shadow was back to normal.

There was no sun that day so no chance for shadows of any kind, of which Azriel was glad. The walk was quick this time; his guards were unusually irritable, and he had to hurry to keep up with them. He managed to catch some of their grumblings and was not surprised to hear them upset that they couldn’t just fly to his mother’s home and how annoying and strange it was that he, even though a bastard, couldn’t fly.

“Shut your hole!” The guard on the right elbowed his friend hard in the side. “You know why,” he said softer, throwing a glance over his shoulder.

They needn’t be covert about it. Azriel knew why he couldn’t fly. They all did.

But however long the walk, however hard it was not to look at his surroundings, eventually they’d approach the outer edges of the camp and the tension in Azriel’s shoulders would start to ease. He knew it wasn’t a true hour with his mother. He was only allowed an hour out, after all, and that included the walk there and back, but it was still time spent with her and for that he was grateful.

Azriel was also grateful that the guards would let him go in alone. He suspected they were supposed to accompany him inside as well, but given their wings and size, there wasn’t really room for all four of them in his mother’s home, and so they just guarded the door outside instead. As if either he or his mother would get far if they escaped, with neither of their wings working and all.

His mother’s home was more of a shack, a small little hut off by itself at the edge of camp but still within sight of the main buildings. When Azriel was younger, he used to find it odd that he warranted guards but his mother did not. But then he learned why his mother no longer worked as a seamstress, and knew she could not run away any more than someone would dare try to kidnap her.

He stepped quietly in the door to find himself once again in darkness, but for this one hour a week, Azriel did not mind being in the dark. This was a different sort of darkness from the dark of his cell; it was hushed, quiet. Filled with warmth, though his mother hardly ever lit her fireplace or even a candle.

“I knew you were coming.” She sat in her chair by the window, the natural light forming almost a halo around her dark hair. A small blanket sat unfinished on her lap, and she looked up at him with a smile.

She always knew when he was coming even when he didn’t. “I know, Mama,” he said, suddenly shy, always shy at first contact. “How are you today?”

His mother took a deep breath and smiled at him again, and picked up the patch of fabric she was in the middle of sewing onto the blanket. Though her shack was devoid of decoration, the walls a plain white, the furniture simple and worn, she had somehow convinced someone--his father?--to allow her to continue sewing. It was not a distraction, she argued, but a tool that served to keep her calm and facilitate the emergence of new visions.

 _I knew you were coming_. She said it every time, and every time it was as warm and as filled with love as the last. He highly doubted she had visions every single time he was about to visit, but at night in the dark of his cell, the idea that his mother would See him and not only know he was coming but would look forward to the visits as much as he did made the nights a little more bearable.

He could only remember one time where she didn’t utter those words, and it was one of the few times the guards had come inside with him. “She’s been agitated lately,” was all they would say. But they didn’t need to say more. He’d been eight years old, and when he stepped inside, he forgot the guards completely as he dropped into his mother’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” she kept whispering. “I’m so sorry.” As if it had been her fault that his half-brothers had poured hot oil on his hands. Even two years later, he still had to fight the urge to keep his hands hidden from her. She never told him she had Seen what had happened, but he had guessed and never brought it up again.

Azriel tried not to bring up her visions at all when he visited her. This was his time with her and his alone, and he wasn’t going to trouble her by bringing up the very reason for her seclusion. A Seer should have complete distance from everyone and everything, and the visions would come and be clear to interpret. Or something like that. According to his mother, she couldn’t control them no matter where she lived, but, while her shack came with furniture and natural light, Azriel knew it was no less a prison than his cell was. And the visions, when she did have them, left her tired and weak and confused. Sometimes Azriel was convinced they were doing something to her to force the visions on her, but he had no proof other than the lack of guards. Who could run away in a camp of Illyrian soldiers in that weakened state?  

As far as he knew, she hadn’t had any visions in awhile. His father would be angry. What use was a Seer if they couldn’t See the outcome of a battle or scry the location of troublemakers? Azriel, on the other hand, was glad. When not troubled by her powers, his mother was calm and relaxed. She smiled more. He loved her smile, not just because he saw so few of them in life, but because it made him feel like he too could find something to smile about one day.

Though always glad to visit his mother, he wasn’t smiling that day either. He almost wished he’d had an extra day alone before seeing her--and then cursed himself for even thinking that. He had questions for her but just wasn’t sure how to ask them.

“Come here and tell me what’s wrong,” she said suddenly, holding her arms out to him. And then she laughed at what must have been the astonishment on his face. “I haven’t Seen anything, my darling. It’s called being a mother.” She pulled him into her lap, even though he was sure he was too big and his wings were surely in the way, even though he knew the soldiers would laugh if they came in just then.

They sat in silence for sometime, Azriel trying to put his words in the right order, his mother letting him. At one point he began to pick at the scars on his hands, but his mother only wrapped her arms around him and placed her hands on his. It was that gesture that finally gave him the courage and the words to speak. There was no judgment in this space.

There were no shadows either, though his thoughts were very much centered around them. It was why his mother had been imprisoned at the edge of camp, and it was why a powerful Illyrian lord in charge of a vast camp hadn’t yet disposed of his ten-year-old bastard.

“Do you think--” He closed his eyes and let the warmth of his mother’s body ground him, remind him of where he was even if he didn’t know who he was. “Do you think I’m going to be able to See things like you do?”

His mother squeezed her arms around him and rested her chin against his shoulder. “I don’t know, my darling.” She cocked her head to the side, and her breath tickled his ear. “Are you able to tell when things are going to happen?”

He shook his head, his dark hair flopping in his eyes. He hated baths as much as the next kid, though maybe not as much as his half-brothers given the way they liked to scream at their servants, but maybe he’d convince the cook to let him bathe in the kitchen during his next outing. Maybe even get her to cut his hair. He often wondered what it’d be like to have his mother cut his hair with her hands so gentle, but she wasn’t allowed scissors. She was brought just what was needed to be mended and nothing more, and if the thread was too long, she’d use her teeth.

“No, nothing like that,” he answered her. “But. . .”

He felt his mother tense beneath him. “But what?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes. . . even when my room is dark. . .” It was always a room with his mother, never a cell. “It’s like there are patches that are even darker, and--and they _move_.” He turned his head until he could see his mother’s face. “Sometimes I can hear them whispering, Mama. Even though I know no one’s there.”

His mother was very still for a very long moment until she suddenly squeezed him even tighter, until he almost couldn’t breathe from the tightness of it.

“Oh, Azriel,” she breathed. “No, no, I don’t think you’ll ever have visions like I do.” She pushed him off her lap then, gently, until he was standing and turned him so he was facing her. Azriel was shocked to see that his mother’s eyes were filled with tears. “Just promise me one thing, all right?”

Azriel would promise his mother anything, and her shining eyes had him nodding all the more faster. “Anything, Mama.”

She smiled and brushed her hand against his cheek. “Don’t tell anyone you hear those whispers, all right? Just listen to them. They might not make sense all the time, but just listen.”

“Don’t tell anyone ever?” He considered this advice. “Can I tell you?”

She laughed, a long deep exhale, and Azriel’s heart swelled. “Of course you can tell me. But don’t tell anyone else unless you trust them, unless you really trust them, all right?”

Azriel only trusted his mother. “All right.” He sat down on the small, worn ottoman at her feet. He felt better having finally shared the secret of his shadows, and tried to forget them now in order to enjoy what little time he had left of his hour.

Because the hour always ended sooner than he expected it to, and suddenly the door was open and the guards there, waiting with crossed arms. Different guards every week, same disgruntled expressions. Azriel had no cause to hate the guards--they were only doing their job, after all--but anyone who could follow orders blindly when it came to ripping a young child away from his delicate mother would never earn his respect.

“Oh.” Azriel was about to leave when he remembered something. He pulled the small item out of his pocket and handed it shyly to his mother. It was a small pink rose off the stem, a little worse for the wear after having been shoved in his pocket for an hour.

She smiled one last time for him as she took the rose in her palm. “You never forget,” she said, pride glowing in her eyes. “I’ll see you next time. I promise.”

He always grabbed the roses off a bush at the front door when no one was looking, one of the few times he was not afraid of the strange shapes his shadows sometimes took. It wasn’t much of a gift--he was sure they never lasted longer than a few days--but, oh, how his mother loved roses. Seeing her smile was enough payment for bringing a little bit of color into her lonely world.

Azriel nodded then--no mushy goodbyes in front of the soldiers--and the door was shut behind him for another week.

When they arrived back at the manor, the soldiers leaving him as quickly as they could, Azriel found his half-brothers had beaten him home. They were quite a few years older than him, and Azriel suspected their age difference was just one of the many reasons they hated him so much. How dare his mother tempt their father away from them after so many years of marriage and family? And then there he was, a reminder of that, living in their own home.

“Did you see your mommy?” the older one taunted.

“Did you cry?” asked the younger, laughing.

Azriel stared up at them in silence. He refused to call them by name, even in his thoughts. They didn’t think he was worth the trouble; why should he return the favor?

A servant was standing by the wall, waiting to take Azriel back downstairs. They never said anything when the lord’s sons went at him like this. They just waited. Until they were done with him. Azriel shoved his hands in his pockets and turned to the servant, but his brothers had a few more insults left to fling before letting him go completely.

The older one shoved his arm out, and Azriel ran into it, the hard muscle and bone hitting his chest like an iron bar. “Running away already?”

“Oh, don’t go yet,” the other one said. “Or do you really like the dark more than us?”

“Nah.” The older one kept his arm out, now holding onto Azriel’s shoulder to prevent him from moving. “I’m pretty sure I heard him crying down there in the dark. Crying like the little baby that he is.”

Azriel tried to keep his head straight, his eyes ahead. All he had to do was let them get their petty insults out of their systems and he’d be fine. He tried to keep his eyes ahead--until he noticed his brother’s shadow wasn’t his shadow anymore.

“I bet he wets the bed!” Loud guffaws filled the large foyer, echoing off the marble floor.

Azriel looked back and forth between the two boys, but they were still laughing and didn’t notice a thing. They didn’t notice the small wisp of shadow curling around his older brother’s ankle, and they definitely didn’t notice the small whispers that seemed to issue from it either.

“You wet the bed.”

It was as if time stopped. Both older boys froze and then slowly, in unison, turned their heads back to him.

“What did you say?” the older boy whispered.

Feeling emboldened--the whispers were not just filled with words but with such a certainty that Azriel knew them to be true--he repeated himself. _Just listen to them_ , his mother had said. And he had.

“You used to wet the bed.” Azriel didn’t let his gaze waver and, despite the deep fear that they would retaliate right then and there, was rewarded for his bravery.

The older boy turned to his brother. “Did you tell him that?” He spoke in that same, scary whisper.

The younger of the two frowned, brow furrowed in confusion. “What? Why would I tell him that? Why would I even speak to him?” And then he stopped and leaned forward, a feral grin spreading across his face. “ _Did_ you used to wet the bed?”

Wasting no more words, the older boy launched himself at his brother, and the two of them set about pummeling each other right there in the middle of the foyer. Azriel took that moment to escape down to his cell, one of the very few times he was glad to be back behind bars. A moment later, he could hear her voice—the screeching, piercing voice of his stepmother—echoing throughout the manor even down there in the dark. He knew right away then that his father wasn’t home yet. They’d never get away with that noise otherwise. He considered it a small consolation, that she was at least afraid of someone, even if that didn’t seem to help him out at all.

But the image of his half-brothers beating each other up? It wasn’t a rose, but it was enough to bring a smile to Azriel’s face and carry him until his hour with his mother the following week.

 

**Author's Note:**

> In ACOFAS, Azriel and Rhys have a conversation in which Azriel mentions going to a place called Rosehall, and Rhys asks him to buy "her" a present from him. It is not explained what Rosehall is nor who the "she" refers to, but one of the main theories in the fandom right now is that it might be Azriel's other home/might have belonged to his mother. 
> 
> This theory is mentioned in the following tumblr post: https://newlyfaenesta.tumblr.com/post/173559489131/sncinder-propshophannah-so-like-rhyss-mom  
> and so was the inspiration behind this fic. :D


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